Salvaged

"The others are waking up.” was a phrase that gave me a delightful chill when I read it.

"In Madeleine Roux’s Salvaged, Rosalyn Devar works as a salvager, going out to “dead” spaceships to clean up the bodies. It’s a cruddy job for someone as highly-educated and competent as she is, but she left her father’s company and walked away to somewhere she could be anonymous and alone. She had been attacked by a co-worker and her father did nothing about it because he couldn’t afford to fire the man. Now a suit from the salvaging company has taken some sort of interest in her. There have been several dead ships recently that seem a bit too similar, so he wants her to keep her eyes open on her next trip out. In return, he won’t fire her for drinking on the job! When Rosalyn makes her way out to the latest dead ship, she finds that not all of the crew is actually dead–and there’s a mysterious alien fungus that has spread out over the ship.

The crew of the ship Roz is checking out is pretty interesting. Rayan is a young scientist who’s trying to analyze the fungus. Misato is an older scientist who came along on the working equivalent of taking a vacation. Edison is the weary captain, and Piero is a security officer who comes across as unusually violent. All of these people think that Roz seems familiar, but none of them know why. Some of them seem to want to stop Roz, while others try to help her. They all make reference to “Foxfire” or “Mother,” and both words seem to refer to the fungal growth.

There’s scientific discovery, human minds fighting against an alien influence, secrets, betrayal, a murder mystery, and more. Mother wants to be found, and Roz and the crew have to stop that from happening–otherwise her influence could spread across the known universe. Speaking of the universe, the worldbuilding is great. Earth is slowly being evacuated due to terrible weather and dwindling resources. The book doesn’t spend too much time on that, just including enough information to set the stage. There’s also great creativity in how the ship is used throughout the plot". -Heather Errant Dreams

A few reviewers have mentioned that science fiction is not a genre that Madeleine Roux has written in before but her usual work in the horror genre has stood her in good stand here. I will certainly seek out more of her work

Ok, I'm just going to say it -the Mother thing is icky. I recognize the Alien reference, but I think it may have been taken too far here.

A salvager with issues ends up on a derelict space craft that has been overtaken by a parasitic sentient fungus that has infected the ship's crew. It sounds exciting - it isn't. I can't really put my finger on why I have zero interest in continuing reading this after getting halfway through. The character's are not really interesting at all. Roslyn is an alcoholic and traumatized and has a Bad Dad, but none of those things end up having any influence on the actual plot. The rest of the cast of characters consists almost entirely of emotionally-stunted men, so unsurprisingly they were particularly vulnerable to a parasitic organism that likes to call itself “Mother” in their heads. They may come from different backgrounds, they all felt like the same flavor of snore.

Things started off ok. Roux does a lot of early work to establish Roslyn's predicament and mental state. I'm not saying as I was necessarily pulled in by Roslyn, but I could see it going in good places. We even establish a few characters from her first crew that I was actually curious about. And then all of sudden she's on a mission on her own with a dude she hates. Cool, conflict between our protagonists as they fight the evil? I like it. Oh wait, nevermind he's dead. And then once on the derelict ship, we switch to crew member's POV, and I knew we were in trouble. Whatever momentum there was completely crashed and burned, and never recovered. The story beats had little thrill and the chemistry between the characters was nonexistent.

I often credit a DNF to stumbling into a book that wasn't really for me. But this? This should be for me. I love sci-fi horror, especially considering that there is so little of it available. But there is little horror here, and the sci-fi stuff is pretty, like, juvenile? Like the future-tech elements are the kinds of things we would have thought were cool and innovative in like, I don't know, the early 90s? It doesn't feel like this was written by someone who is really interested in either genre, and on top of it didn't have the ability to put together an interesting narrative around it either.

2.5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
Rosalyn Devar has sunk pretty low - low enough that her job is cleaning up decomposing bodies on failed spaceships. When she's drunk on duty again, the company gives her one last chance, and she's determined to straighten up and get her act together. Only, a parasitic, mind-controlling fungus can ruin your day...

Review
The story starts well, if not particularly innovatively – down on her luck protagonist with dark secrets, having a hard time. And the characterization is mostly strong throughout the book. Unfortunately, the structure and pacing doesn't hold up as well.

The perspective shifts frequently among several characters, and that largely works. However, the piece also frequently slips into flashbacks and memories, and they are, by and large, poorly signaled and demarcated. The net result was that I found it hard to be sure whose perspective we were seeing, and when. There were also significant plot points that simply didn't make sense to me. While some details seemed perfectly reasonable, the larger actions (a mind-influencing parasite respecting the bodily autonomy of a person it desperately wants to recruit) often weren't logical. The characters rush back and forth through spaces that seem awfully convenient to their needs. While much of the revealed backstory was entirely predictable, I didn't find the end credible at all.

All the right elements were in place for a good, if familiar, story, but I didn't feel Roux did a good job of placing and using them. Much of my appreciation was not so much for the story that's here as for the story that I assume she intended. A good effort, but in need of substantial editing and polish.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

Pros: great characters, interesting story

Cons:

On the run from her past, Rosalyn Devar took a job with Merchantia, cleaning up ships when missions go bad. Excessive drinking means this next mission is her last chance. But the Brigantine's not the dead, drifting ship the company believes. To survive, she'll have to face her past and a new alien threat.

If you like the claustrophobia of Alien and the mysterious alien element from The Expanse, you'll love this book. My only complaint was that the holidays cut into my reading time so the paranoia had time to wear off between reading sessions. Otherwise, it gets very intense.

The characters were all quirky and interesting. The storytelling tight and focused. I did figure out one aspect of the mystery a lot sooner than the characters. The ending is a rollercoaster ride of emotions.

I really enjoyed it.